Monday night hubby comes home with a bird that he has found on the ground while taking his late night walk. It has a cut on its head. It's not a little bitty baby bird, but not a full grown bird. A bird that probably just started to fly and got hurt. He decides he is going to nurse it back to health (even though he is leaving for Vegas in less than 48 hours). It's mostly alert, but pretty lethargic.
We get a box lid, put a towel in it, and crush some dog food up for it. I cut down a plastic cup to a little bowl and we put some water in it. We put the box outside the back door on Lucky's pillows and hope for the best.
The next morning the bird is still in the box but is more alert. We have a friend who has a friend who is a bird rescue person so she calls her. The bird rescue person says to put it back in a bush near where he found it and the parents will come back and feed it (what? I was always told that bird parents would abandon their young if humans touched it. Hmmm....maybe a tale to keep us from playing with the birds?) Well, John is too busy to do that before Tuesday night poker. By the time we get home after poker, the bird is fiesty and will not let him pick her up. So he says she is getting better and let's just leave her here.
The next morning we get up to an empty box. YEA! The bird has flown away....not. It has moved out of the box and is now hidden between the pillow and the house. We move the pillow out and try to move the bird. Again too fiesty to let us pick her up. So we decide to just let her do her thing.
John leaves for Vegas, so now the task reverts to me to care for the little bird.
I go out later and she has moved farther out on the patio - under one of the chairs. Later in the day, I find her in the yard near the fence. I go buy bird seed for her. I come home and find her back near the house in the gutter downspout. I put some food by her. I come home again later and she is near the fence gate (the food has not been touched). She's been making the rounds around the yard. I decide it's best to move her back to her box and fluffy blanket. I get gloves on, and against her protests, I put her back in the box. Fresh water and add food. She seems to be doing pretty good - alert, moving her head around watching my every move. As I tried to pick her up she spread out her wings so I know they are fine. I look out the window at her a couple more times before I go to bed and she is curled up in her bed.
The next morning I check on her. She appears to still be half asleep which surprises me. It still doesn't look like she is eating, but there are two little piles of poop so surely she's eating something or there wouldn't be anything coming out. I make sure her box is under the chair so that if (ha! not an "if" lately, but a "when") it rains it may not rain directly on her.
I think about her as I run out to get lunch for a coworker and me. Should I go home and check on her? It is raining, hard at times. No, she's a bird. She's meant to be out in this weather.
Finally I get home and I run to check on her. As I'm unlocking the door I look out the window. This does not look good. Rather than being curled up in her little bunch, she appears "sprawled out". I go to the wet box. Her wet little feathers look so pitiful. Her head is down and I know before I touch her or the box that she is gone.
She's just a bird, one that we did not think would make it. Then why am I crying?
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